January 2nd: Hit the Climbing wall

On January 2^nd I decided to hit the (now open) town and buy my groceries, get me some internet and some shaving crème. The place that I live is quite conveniently located directly beside one of the coolest bunch of German store streets that I have ever seen, and trust me I know my German shop streets. I headed down the street and checked out the dozens of stores selling everything from cell phones to high-end fashion to meat. I stopped by a grocery store (weirdly located in the basement of a clothes store) and proceeded to pick up all the necessities for starting up my house. After gathering everything I went to the check out. First thing on the conveyer belt was two re-useable grocery bags. The lady kindly asks me something in German and I proceed to say “Ja” not having a clue what just went down. Once more and slightly more frustrated the lady repeats the comment. She the says “Do you speak English” in a kind voice, I nod and the check out proceeds as normal. Turns out that most people know English in Germany you just have to squeeze it out of them.

 

After the grocery run I decided to check out the German train system and head down to Düsseldorf Central to buy a rail pass, go climbing and get me some internet. First stop the pass. 337.20 Euro later I had had four months of train, tram and bus with Düsseldorf, Ratingen and Lintorf. I was off to the climbing wall, it turns out that the wall is only 800m from the train station as I read in a sketchy T-Mobile Hot Zone (spot with internet) that I later figured out was located right next to an extremely less sketchy Starbucks with the same internet. I arrived at the climbing wall after about an hour of walking around Düsseldorf hopelessly lost, I now know the way, the place looked great. Despite some clever phtoshopping on the website the wall was still quite large and was the home of some great and friendly Euro-Climbers. My new buddies Oliver and Derek took me around and introduced me to the French rating system of climbs and showed me the choice routes. The only downside was that the admission was 9.50 Euro and a glass of water was 1.20 Euro! I also noticed that in this German climbing wall (Kletterhalle) that all the officially un-cooth methods of belaying at Canadian climbing walls went down here with no problem. Munter hitches off fixed ground anchors and figure-eight belay devices were used left-right and center. I cringed slightly as I saw this hot girl being taught by her boy friend how to belay off a Munter hitch. I wrapped up my climbing experience with extremely sore arms and headed home.

 

I found a Starbucks to sit down and get my internet fix. On the way back to my house I noticed a few things that were just a bit odd. A forty year old lady with a three wheeled Razor scooter and a nose ring scooting along the station platform like it was no big deal and a ton of strange euro-haircuts including the faux-hawk, the euro-mullet and the euro-puff hairstyle. It was all quite entertaining. I am now a master of the Rheinbahn train system.